Emerson Network Power leverages channels to enable SMB competitiveness

There's a business opportunity for channel partners which want to focus on the small and medium sized business (SMB) market when it comes to data centre solutions, says Daniel Sim, Distribution Director (Asia) for Emerson Network Power.

Source: Emerson Network
Power. Sim.

"Channel partners have a great opportunity to tap into the growth of the data centre market and support SMBs as they continue to embrace technology to grow, scale, and innovate," he said. 

"The SMB marketplace continues to be a key driver of growth for us, and in step we’ve continued to add more partners across the region. We are selective about our partner programme and aim to work with large system integrators who are interested to increase their profile as a ‘one-stop solutions’ provider. Our strong relationship with channel partners across the region is what allows us to deliver our full range solutions to our SMB customers while accelerating new product innovation that will address today’s competitive economy."

Although larger companies are known to have data centre management needs, SMBs do have similar concerns, Sim explained. "SMBs in the region are looking to gain a competitive edge in today’s highly competitive business environment by fortifying their systems and constantly improving productivity. As a result, these organisations have an increased need for data centre solutions that more enterprise-focused data centre solution providers may not be able to serve, such as power protection, thermal management, data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) tools for SMBs to ensure that their IT infrastructure is always running optimally," he said.

Emerson Network Power's SMB customers have a varied profile. "On the one hand, you have SMBs that are in the technology space already – those that offer platforms to build apps, or analytic platforms would typically require some form of data centre space. SMBs in the mobile application development or mobile gaming space would also need their offerings to be up 24/7 and would also require data centres. These are fairly straightforward cases where data centres are needed for storage, and uptime," Sim said. 

Other SMB customers have offices in multiple locations and use a data centre to consolidate and safehouse their data, particularly if they use cloud-based services to share data across their locations, Sim added. 

Sim points out that over 90% of companies in Asia are SMBs, so it is a huge playing field. "According to a global survey conducted by SAP in 2013, 75% of SMBs believe that technology is a key element of business transformation, and that it is instrumental in helping them achieve sustainable growth. The necessary support to ensure business continuity, reliability, and storage for SMBs leveraging these technologies would require the data to be housed in a data centre somewhere," he said.

For example, DCIM tools help SMBs to decrease server downtime, remote access and centralisation of desktop devices even with limited IT manpower, Sim noted, and this is where channel partners come in. 

"Channel players have the chance to come in as both enablers and experts to support SMB customers. We have seen the need for our own partners to better address the SMB market and established a major initiative some years ago that enhances the competencies of our partners to help them better serve that sector. Our partners are offered training on our range of IT infrastructure solutions – from power and cooling products to monitoring solutions and services – which enables them to use this expertise and confidence to better address the needs of SMB customers," he shared. 

"Our priority is to support business critical continuity for SMBs and offer them a competitive advantage by helping them improve productivity, fortify their systems, and help streamline their infrastructure management with our SMB solutions. With our customer-centric approach, we understand that the needs for our customers are unique, whether they are SMBs or large enterprises. We believe that we can help share our expertise on integrated power, cooling, monitoring and enclosure solutions to better serve our partners and customers," he concluded.

Emerson Network Power's partnership programme, the Uptime Partner Program, is targeted at top IT resellers, system integrators, industry players and IT enterprise builders. The programme addresses the needs of different segments and markets with structured levels of partnership, and provides training, support, and access for to the company's solutions.